Excerpt:

Charlotte civil rights attorneys plan to take the newly passed state law forbidding involuntary busing to court to try to have it declared unconstitutional.

The law, sponsored by Mecklenburg Rep. James H. Carson, Jr., prohibits busing of children to school to promote segregation or desegregation and requires the assignment of a child to the school nearest his home.

J. LeVonne Chambers, the attorney who brought the desegregation suit against the School Board, told the News today that his office will test the law in the court.

Chambers said he has "no idea" when the case might come up.

The case, he said, will be heard before a panel of three federal judges, not necessarily from North Carolina, appointed by the chief judge of the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court.

That court is in recess until September, the attorney said, adding that he doesn’t know if the three-judge panel could be appointed before September. . . .

Chambers told The News that a number of similar state laws were struck down by the courts during the 1950s and 1960s because they obstructed the desegregation of schools.